


Blue On Black, Tears on a River, Push on a Shove, it Don’t Mean Much

by Spiralled_Fury



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien Agreste Needs Help, Adrien Agreste Needs a Hug, Blood, Broken Bones, Fainting, Hurt Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, Im not the only one who was like 'CHAT HURT' the whole time right?, Oneshot, Protect Adrien Agreste, Sad Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, Season 3 Episode 11 Miraculer, Shock, Sorry Not Sorry, This fuckin sucks but I gotta get back into it kids, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Vomiting, cataclysm used on self sucks, coping not coping, it's mentioned - Freeform, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 13:02:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20358928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spiralled_Fury/pseuds/Spiralled_Fury
Summary: Adrien was having a rough fucking day.So he took a cataclysm to the ribs. It shouldn't be that bad, right?Wrong.





	Blue On Black, Tears on a River, Push on a Shove, it Don’t Mean Much

**Author's Note:**

> Hey kids, get ready for a hot steamy load of angst drippin' down your neck and chest!
> 
> Im sorry I vanished??? Like, yeah. 
> 
> Ok, I'll finish AWU and get back to working on TYBT, shut up. I had to get back into writing and this seemed acceptable.
> 
> Song is Blue on Black by Kenny Wayne Shepherd. I always feel like that song is someone limping forward with injuries, so it really fits this.

“What’s the phrase again? Oh, _cataclysm_!”

At first, pain wasn’t exactly a sensation he had, there was only the semi-weightlessness that came with being thrown backward, and the resounding _crunch_ that he had felt more than heard. 

Hitting the bars of the park fence made everything go very fuzzy for a moment as he fell to the ground, gasping into the dirt. 

The dull roar of ringing that filled his ears drowned out all other sounds aside from the deep, agonizing beating of his own heart against his ribs. His chest wasn’t on fire, no, that would be too simple to describe what had just happened. 

_Never_, Adrien decided absently. _am I touching anything living with my cataclysm_. 

At first contact, it had been shockingly cold, a blaze that encased his ribs and closed his throat, his lungs stilling like he had just jumped into a freezing pool.

And then it was a volcano, a lightning strike, an earthquake that shredded all reason, hope and sensibility he had. The only thing that kept him from screaming in agony was the fact that the first hit had partially knocked him unconscious. 

Unfortunately, he was awake now. 

His own wheezing, gasping breathing was finally coming back, which meant hearing was back in general. Eyes flicking open, Adrien forced himself to focus through the pain, even if his brain was screaming to just _lay down and die already_.

With a squeaky groan, his left arm tightened as support and his right slid up, hand bracing into the dirt as he shoved himself up slightly, off the ground. 

The shivering that his unstable right arm did seemed to spread through his cold-feeling body (everywhere except his chest, which burned and shuddered with every half-aborted breath) as he pushed into the semi-upright position. Black flickered in his vision, his own breathing going louder, close to rest, close to sleep... 

Harsh hacking brought him out of his own foray into unconsciousness, his lungs finally waking up enough to reject anything he had eaten in the last day. 

Despite his eyes watering and his brain screaming for sweet, sweet unconsciousness, Adrien stayed awake as he coughed up strings of bloody, thick red bile onto the pure, soft yellow sand. The faint sobs that followed sounded alien through the burning in his throat and the desperate panting that seemed to make every shift of his ribs echo in his enhanced hearing. 

As one knee slid up underneath him, he _heard_ the low grind of broken bones against each other, the sound like nails on a chalkboard, but so much worse. It was _meatier_, like there was something there to grind against on the inside. 

_ Like my fucking lungs. _

Being Chat had definitely allowed freedom of language, he gave it that. Even if his Lady gave him a glare every time.

_ ...God I wish she was here. _

His other knee slid underneath as support, and he finally pulled his left arm onto the hand. All fours. Like a cat. 

It didn’t make anything any easier. 

The wheeze in his own lungs should’ve been concerning, but Adrien found himself giving less of a flying fuck every second, doing the biological equivalent of breathing through a straw. 

Slowly, he brought himself to a crouch and pushed upright, making it mostly onto his feet before he stepped back, falling against the fence. 

One hand went to his ribs while the other fell to the edge of the metal, helping himself stay upright. For a moment he could only gasp and pant, eyes half-lidded as he struggled for consciousness, gasping softly. 

He took a moment to just breath. Breathing sounded good. Yeah.

Pulling his shaky hand from his lower chest, shock was a belated emotion at the sight of blood, a shredded section of his uniform around the impact zone that broken, revealing skin. The soft skin and hard muscle gave no resistance to a cataclysm that had turned into a blackened, peeling and bleeding circle on his lower sternum. 

Like a steak cooked into charcoal. 

He lay his hand back over the sluggishly oozing wound, turning to face the exit of the park. With one arm on the fence, Adrien limped out and staggered across the street, eyes flickering to a grey haze that made it difficult to navigate through pain. 

Darkness called to him, but fortunately, it wasn’t sweet unconsciousness (God that sounded like a good idea...) this time. An alleyway, a hiding spot.

Rapidly losing steam and uncaring of who could walk past an open alley, Adrien turned into the corridor and leaned heavily onto the wall, elbow locked to keep himself steady. 

After a moment, he sank against the wall, trying to lower himself to the ground as slowly as possible. “Plagg... claws in...” 

The rest of his descent to the ground was rapid and jarred his body further, but he couldn’t really get the energy to care. He felt like he was freezing, and while he knew that was shock and maybe blood loss, he couldn’t do much. 

Energy flowed out of him like water held in his hands as the costume slipped away and the Kwami swirled free. “So...” Plagg groaned as he lay on Adrien’s chest. The boy was just thankful the Kwami weighed nothing. “..._that’s_ what it feels like to get cataclysmed. I promise I’ll never call the Dinosaurs a bunch of wussies ever again.” 

Adrien ignored that. Plagg was talking, and he sounded like he was doing semi-ok. Maybe. 

“Pl-“ Adrien coughed, and he could feel something wet shift in his throat, dribbling from the corner of his mouth. 

“Kid?” Turning around, Plagg met his eyes. The black cat-shaped creature hadn’t taken off to fly, but he didn’t look injured. 

“Plagg, grab some camembert from my jacket.” He choked out, panting slightly after that. His voice was strained and low, and every word was agony. “We’ll rest for a while until Ladybug comes back...” 

“...Got it.” Plagg said softly, and there was the faint sensation of his jacket moving. “Hey!” He barked immediately after. 

Adrien pulled his eyes open, (_When did I close them?_) meeting Plagg’s furious green. 

“You gotta stay awake.” The Kwami growled dangerously. For the first time, Plagg didn’t just sound like a lazy little cat, but a tiger. Demanding, fierce. 

Laying his head back, Adrien groaned painfully. “Just... five minutes.”

“Yeah, no. Just stay awake.” The order was strange coming from the languorous Kwami. “It’s been a long time since I saw a holder get hit with their own cataclysm, and never in the ribs.”

Briefly, Adrien considered teasing him about the emotion and demand in his voice, but he didn’t have the energy for it. “Uh huh.” 

Despite staying awake, the next period of time passed in a blur of nothing but soft panting as the Kwami sat with him, watched him, flew nearby, checked for passerby, primarily a black blur in his hazy field of vision.

There was only one voice that pulled him from the soft, dreamlike reprieve of rest and pain. “Chat Noir!” 

“Shit...” Plagg muttered as he flew close to Adrien again, his movement almost too fast to track as the boy sat up slightly, then stood up. 

It felt a bit better. Very little. He could draw a mostly-full breath before needing to exhale, and he no longer felt unconsciousness creeping up up on his vision like hungry wolves coming for his soul. 

“Plagg, claws out.” He murmured softly, letting the costume flow across his body instead of his usual poses that seemed _right_ to do. 

The instant he was fully transformed, Adrien pulled the staff off his back and extended it enough to use as a walking stick. Briefly checking his chest to ensure no damage was visible, he paused to breath before limping free of his hiding space and boosting himself onto the roof where Ladybug waited. 

“I’ve made a decision.” Ladybug announced from where she stood, practically glowing as per usual. She always looked perfect in her suit, no matter what she did. “The akuma is Chloe’s best friend,” The comb of the bee miraculous was held firmly in her hand. “if anyone can help us, it’s Chloe.” 

For a moment, he felt his heart sink. Chloe was too risky, just for her identity. But he always trusted Ladybug. “You sure?” He asked, leaning on his staff. Everything ached, but he was no longer in burning pain.

“This might be her last mission but we definitely need her this time.” Ladybug held the comb to him. 

He took it without hesitation, grabbing onto the pole and going to extend it before his body abruptly reminded him of the state he was in. 

And he came crashing to the roof, for a moment utterly paralyzed by pain. He couldn’t breathe, or think, or even move. 

“Chat Noir! Are you ok?”

He pushed to his feet as fast as he could, regardless of the black that turned his vision into pinholes and made his legs shake. “It’s nothing, I just got cataclysmed in the ribs. I’ll be fine.” Keeping his tone steady and light was a struggle as he leaned on his staff a little more. Inside, Plagg’s concern and fear was squirming like still-live fish inside his stomach. 

“I promise you we’ll get our powers back, Chat Noir. And I’ll heal you.” Ladybug said instantly, worry everywhere in her voice and body. 

“I...” He panted a bit. “can’t wait.” 

And then he took off, keeping the goal, the _mission_ at the front of his mind. Without a focus, he knew he’d just stop.

When the fight started, he came to a few realizations quickly.

Mayura was larger and stronger than he was, but he was more skilled. In the end, however, it really didn’t matter. 

Exhaustion and pain had driven him to a lapse, and Adrien felt her foot crush onto his wrist. _Sorry, M’lady._ He thought briefly as the world started to slide away with his ring. Unconsciousness would be blessed relief, in his tired mind.

He wondered, briefly, what would happen to him once Mayura had his miraculous. Would she capture him? Or was he just a deadweight after they had stolen Plagg from him?

Plagg was his freedom, his hope for the future. Chat Noir was his escape with his Lady. 

So he’d never go back to being ‘just Adrien’ again, would he? He was sick and tired of being a perfect pet, right? 

But he was spineless and he knew it. At least if she killed him, he didn’t have to live being a little test subject, worshipped by the masses and unable to stand beside the girl he loved. 

The weight disappeared from his arm abruptly, but nothing else changed. He tried to move, tried to get up, tried to put every ounce of energy into just the simple act of _sitting up._

Nothing worked. Drained and broken, defeated. 

God, he was a failure.

“Chat Noir!”

A soft, gentle hand touched his abdomen. Not too hard, something he was thankful for. Too hard, he would’ve passed out happily. 

He forced his eyes open. For her. “...Sorry, m’lady...” He mumbled, head falling back onto the ground. “...I held out for as long as I could.” 

Arms slid under his, slowly drawing him to his feet. After a long moment, he figured out he should be helping, legs scrambling weakly to pull underneath his own weight. 

His own staff was slid in his hands as Ladybug slowly let him take the full force of _gravity_ again. Everything sucked.

To his surprise though, her hand stayed on the small of his back as he gasped and panted, trying to get himself back together, get his head back on, hear anything more than the roar of blood in his ears. 

When he opened his eyes, he caught sight of Mayura escaping, leaping toward ‘away’ with a miraculous in her hands. 

“I’ve got this!” 

He really didn’t.

Dropping to his knees sounded really good after he threw his staff, body shaking in a way that said he wouldn’t even be on that for much longer. But the rush of satisfaction that came with Mayura’s grunt of pain and frustration was more than worth it. 

The wave of pain that came through his ribs when he finally dropped to his side brought coughing back, something that he struggled to cover. Ladybug couldn’t know how much it hurt. If he was coughing up blood. She couldn’t be distracted. 

Breathing had become a luxury, shaky inhales that made him regret ever exhaling. Finally, his eyes slid open, and he rolled onto his side enough to boost upward again. 

And that was when he saw them about to lunge at Miraculer. 

_ One last time. _

Latching around her hips was easy enough. He mostly just held his own wrist and used weight to keep her down, but Adrien didn’t weigh much, and that made using weight more difficult.

So when Miraculer’s knee connected sharply with his jaw and the blackness finally swallowed him whole, all he could think was, _about damn time._

* * *

Adrien came to with a deep, wheezing inhale, back arching violently and hands forming desperate, tense claws at his sides. 

Immediately, he rolled over and started coughing and spitting, long, syrupy strings of bile and blood falling onto the glass roof. His chest hurt significantly less, but still agonizing. 

Why, God why, did he have to wake up? He was perfectly content in blackness!

After a few moments of panting, unable and unwilling to be embarrassed by the drips of spittle and red he was certain was on his face, he used one glove to scrub his mouth as clean as possible. 

Subtlety was key in using his staff to pull upright, hiding the fact that the Miraculous Ladybug lucky charm hadn’t fixed him completely. 

Words were exchanged between Queen Bee and Ladybug, Chloe’s gaze turned suspicious and angry at the announcement that she might never hold the Bee again. 

But she gave it up. 

Words were spoken, and Ladybug took Carapice and Rena Rouge, probably to return the miraculouses to where they came from. 

“Ladies...” Adrien said to the remaining girls, Chloe and Sabrina, before turning and hopping away. 

Every landing was an agony. Every jolt of his body, every inch of height that lost oxygen...

By the time he finally crawled in his window, he was finished. Any energy he had regained from Ladybug’s healing was long gone. 

His foot slipped on the edge of his sill, dropping him to the floor without warning. _I’m back..._ He thought softly, but made no effort to move, shift or do more than just breathe. 

Time became an irrelevancy, something that was kind of satisfying to him. It meant that he could lay down as long as he wanted. Unfortunately, Plagg kept shoving at him to move. 

And then his staff buzzed. A message from Ladybug. 

[Make it home ok?] Glowed on his screen.

For a moment, he could just stare at the message, unmoving, unfeeling... 

[Yeah. I’m alright, m’lady. G’night]

“Claws in.” He mumbled. 

Plagg swirled off of him, but instead of going to find cheese immediately, he stayed near Adrien as he reached one hand up, onto the bed. 

Pulling himself up required far more strength and will than he truly wanted to say. It hurt, so, so incredibly much...

But once he was up and over, laying on the sheets, he just sighed. That was it. He was done. Whatever happened tonight, Ladybug would have to fucking handle, as much as he hated to think that.

“...’m sorry, m’lady.” He mumbled to nobody at all. 

At least he had pain. 

Because pain was proof he was alive. Proof he was living. 

Proof that he could survive. 

He went to sleep, for the first time in what felt like years.

**Author's Note:**

> wowsers this is a mess.
> 
> If you thought it was good just??? Comment?????? I love that tbh so


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